Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Thursday 2 September 1954, page 7


Women's Interests On The Air

"Peter Rabbit's"Life Story

ONE of the best-loved

of children's books -Beatrix Cotter's "Peter Rabbit" stories-began as

an illustrated letter to a' little boy of 5, to cheer him because he was sick.

How the rabbit in the brass buttoned coat became world famous is also the story of Beatrix Potter's life, as, told in Margaret Lane's biography and recalled by Beverly Long woth Lee in a talk in the A.B.C. Women's Session to be broadcast on Tuesday morning.

For Peter was the rabbit who was nibbling near 27 year-old Beatrix Potter when she wrote that letter in the garden of her father's home in London in 1893, and the drawings in the letter were of the original Peter. The book was not published for general readers till 1902.

It was while trying to sell this first "Peter Rabbit" story that Beatrix met her fiance, publisher Norman Warne, and it was his sudden death that caused her to spend nearly eight years as a re-cluse-the years when most of the other Peter Rabbit stories were written.

"The Sheep-Woman"

By 1913-the year she married lawyer William Heelis -there were 20 Peter Rab-bit books, and Beatrix Potter turned from fairy tales to farming and sheep-breeding.

In Lcr notoriously shapeless clothes made from the fleeces she wove herself, Beatrix Pot-ter be.ame known as "The Sheep-Woman of Keswick."

When Beatrix Potter died in 1943, aged 77, her ashes were scattered from Hill Top Farm -the small farm in the Eng-lish Lake District where she wrote most -f her stories, and which she left to the National Trust as a permanent "Peter Rabbit land.*'

. * .

"TVJORFOLK ISLAND is

IM entirely different to any other place we saw-it is so English; and Rabaul is breathtaking in its tropical loveliness," is how Mrs. Sybil Daer describes two of the South Pacific islands she re-cently visited.

Mrs. Baer, who is secre-tary to the Minister for Italy in Australia, Dr. Silvio Daneo, will talk about the six weeks' trip she and her hus-band made when she is inter-viewed by Ida Elizabeth Jen-kins in the Women's Session from 2FC at 10.30 this morn-ing.

"The whole of Norfolk Island has cool laneways reminiscent of England," she says, "and the gullies are full of wild hyacinths."

Italian-born, Mrs. Baer is the wife of the A.B.C.'s State Supervisor of Music, Mr.

Werner Baer.

. * *

TO give members of their

touring club an oppor-tunity to see the spring flowers and wildflower« on the Blue Mountains, the 2CH

PORTION of the illus-trated letter written by Beatrix Potter to a five year-old-the first oc-casion on which "Peter Rabbit" was introduced to his readers. The letter is reproduced in Margaret Lane's biog-raphy of Beatrix Potter, who is the subject of an

AJ3.C. broadcast.

Women's League is arranging a coach tour to Kurrajong and Katoomba next Wednes-day. The coach will leave the A.W.A. Building at 8.45

a.m.

SHIRLEY ABICAIR, for-merly of Sydney, who is currently topping Lon-don's T.V. bill, is heard every Sunday night- at 9.45 from 2FC playing her zither, also accom-panied by instrumental trio, Sydney Bright (brother of band-leader, Geraldo) at the piano, Bert Weedon (guitar) and Jack Collier (bass).

MARATHON serial writer,

Gwen Meredith, whose current serial, "Blue Hills," is heard every Monday to Thurs-day at 1 p.m. from 2FC, is also giving a series of travel talks in the Women's Session. Her talk on Ankara will be heard on Monday at 10.311

a.m.

In between dictating the episodes of "Blue Hills" into a dictating machine for her secretary to transcribe, Miss Meredith has- collaborated

with her husband, Ainsworth Harrison, in writing a book on their recent world tour.

"/CONTINENTAL Vy CORNER," 2SM'¡ Thursday night session, will be broadcast from the Italian liner, Australia, to-night al

7.30.

Continental music will be played by the ship's orchestra and, as usual, the compere will be John Hart.

* * .

IT'S "just an ordinary sort

of week" for Mrs. M, Net--heim - although she has made a film, sung in a madrigal concert, and will act in a radio play on Saturday night, as well as having a seven day-a-week job as a house-wife.

But Mrs. Nettheim's weeks have followed this pattern for almost more years than she can remember, for as Mary Hosking she has been in show business since the days of Her Majesty's Theatre, first in

grand opera then in films (among them "Sons of Mat-thew," "Bitter Springs," "Wherever She Goes"), and earlier this year toured for four months with the John Alden Company.

And, as well as her family of five, there is a four-storey-ed home at Balmoral for Mrs. Nettheim to look after -and without any domestic help.

Saturday night's A.B.C. play, in which she will take part, is "Home at Seven," to be heard from 2FC at 8 o'clock.

. * * *

"ELSIE" (Rita Pauncefort) of 2GB'S "Ada and Elsie" show, will be belle of the ball when she is guest of honour at the Western Sub-urbs Hospital Ball at Ash-field Town Hall to-night.

. * * *

NEWS from London of

A.B.C. pianist, Dot Mendoza, is that she is just out of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stan-more, where she says she has "bad almost an artificial limb built into one lee."

Miss Mendoza, who went to England in February, spent more than three months in hospital, "but, the wonderful thing," she says in a letter to 'friends in Sydney, "is that I

| am now walking faster and ¡ straighter than ever."

, She is now staying with her

daughter, June Mendoza, who , is a successful painter, having [ had one of her pictures hung

. on the line at the Royal ' Academy.

. * *

A PUPPET show (with a

donkey), a dancing doll ', and an old donkey-man, will j be part of the programmes for

the very young in the new A.B.C. Children's Hour which | will begin on Monday.

And on Monday the old A.B.C. Children's Session becomes the Children's Hour, which will be 'broadcast every week day from 5 to 6 p.m.

As well as more songs and fantasy for, the youngest listeners, there will be an ex-

tended club session for Argo-

nauts on Tuesdays, a Wednes-day Question Box, a competi-tion on ship names on Thurs-days, and on Friday a new sport section.

* * *

TASMANIAN scriptwriter

Catherine Shepherd, who has written a three-act play about Lady Franklin, wife of the successor to Colonel Arthur as Governor of Van Diemen's Land—Sir John Franklin—will talk about her in the A.B.C. series, "A Woman to Remember," from 2FC at 10.30 a.m. next Wed-nesday.

"Brought up in England in the period of the Napoleonic Wars, Jane Franklin was edu-cated at a young ladies' acad-emy, and, encouraged by her father, a wealthy widower, she improved her mind by travel, at first to places of in-terest in the British Isles, and, after the wars were over, to countries on the Continent.

"Various Suitors"

"She studied all kinds of subjects to do with art and science, and attended lectures. In spite of these intellectual tastes, she was exceedingly attractive, and various suitors presented themselves. But, at the risk of becoming an old maid, she decided to refuse them, and then when consid-erably over 30, she married Captain John Franklin."

Miss Shepherd tells of the Franklins' work of establish-ing schools and societies for the advancement of know-ledge, of how Lady Franklin visited women prisoners in gaol, climbed Mount Welling-ton, and was the first woman to travel overland from Mel-bourne to Sydney—"sleeping in a tent and consorting with aboriginals."

Printed and published by John

Fairfax & Sons Pty., Limited, at the registered office of the Com-pany, 38 Hunter Street, Sydney.

The people who make the A.B.C. Children's Hour—MAC (Atholl Fleming) JOHN (John A. Appleton), PAT (Patricia Parr), RICHARD (Richard Parry, the producer), ANNE (Patricia Pearson), WALTER (John McGrath, effects

man), and CHRIS (Leonard Thiele).